


Their Memory Remains

by Murus



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Grief/Mourning, John Reese (mentioned) - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-25
Updated: 2019-01-03
Packaged: 2019-08-28 22:22:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16731741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Murus/pseuds/Murus
Summary: Imperceptibly for most, the world had changed. For the first time in years, humanity was not being watched. There were no secret systems - spying, controlling, rescuing.For three people, the new world was also an emptier place.A look into how the survivors of Team Machine are dealing with grief and loss in the aftermath of Samaritan's defeat, each in their own way. Answer to Zaniida's October prompt.





	1. The End of a Dream

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Zaniida](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zaniida/gifts).
  * Inspired by [October Feels Odd](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16173200) by [Zaniida](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zaniida/pseuds/Zaniida). 



“Hello! Earth to Detective Fusco!” The voice of Detective Castelli intruded into Lionel Fusco’s mind, along with the hand that waved in front of his face. Realizing that he had spaced out while staring at the entrance to the 8th Precinct again, he snapped his mouth shut and frowned at the kid (in actuality, the brunette was thirty-two). “Hey! Didn’t they teach you to respect your elders?” he exclaimed.

Castelli laughed. “Just bringing you back home, Detective. I would never disrespect a senior citizen.” And she _winked_.

“Who ya— you calling me a dinosaur, Castelli?” Fusco sputtered. “Careful there, ‘cause I’ve got the best names, and I’m not afraid to use them.” He reinforced the point by pointing a finger at her in a pointedly aggressive manner.

“No, no. Not at all. ’Sides, dinosaurs went extinct ages ago. It’s everyone else here who was the dinosaurs. I’d say you’re more like one of those small rodent mammals.” She shrugged.

“Keep pushing it, Jeeves,” he said threateningly — or so he hoped.

“Okay, okay.” She held up her hands placatingly. “A national treasure, then.”

Fusco regarded her with suspicion. “Sweet talk ain’t gonna work on me, pal.”

Castelli rolled her eyes. “Think about it. Times change, people come and go as if we’re an airport, for chrissake. But you’re still here, doing your thing.”

“My _thing?_ ”

“As in, other people’s jobs.” She raised an eyebrow. “Solving their cases, saving their people. Or so I’ve heard.”

“Err, that’s—” Lionel trailed off.

“Don’t sweat it.” She waved her hand in a small circle. “Just making sure you’re okay, you know. You’ve been staring out a lot like that.” She looked at him pointedly. “And it’s not like I’m the only person who’s noticed.”

Fusco looked at her seriously for a moment. “Yeah, I’m fine. Don’t worry. I just get to thinking about things. You know, the true nature of Being. Epistology. That sorta stuff.”

Castelli snorted. “That’s epistemology.”

“Whatever.”

“Well, if you want to talk, we’re all friends here. Okay, colleagues. Strangers, mostly.” She cringed a bit. “You get what I’m trying to say.” Castelli scratched her head.

“Yeah, yeah, thanks. But really, I’m peachy,” Fusco insisted.

A moment of silence passed. Castelli seemed to have nothing to add, so she nodded and turned, returning to— _to whatever she was doing._ Fusco blinked. He didn’t remember hearing what that was.

It was true; he _had_ been somewhat scatterbrained lately. Inevitably, he looked at the entrance again.

Sighing, he turned and sat back at his desk, determined to focus on the Danken case.

He was living the life, one might say. A respected veteran of the force, even if a constant subject of the rumor mill, with its often wild and sometimes unflattering speculations. His future finally seemed set, with the prospect of working his homicide cases, shuffling papers and eventually retiring.

Five years ago, he would have killed to have something so normal again. He winced to himself; _Yeah, I would’ve killed for that._

But then, the downward spiral of his life was punched way out of orbit and into the Twilight Zone. Suddenly he found himself press-ganged into working for Batman and Professor X, the weirdness never ceasing to escalate.

Not that he liked it. He hadn’t signed up for the crazy train, and he certainly didn’t appreciate having to constantly put his life on the line for his blackmailers — even if it was to save people. After all, he had a son, damn it. He didn’t want Lee to lose his father.

Yet, Fusco knew, he had already been losing him. With the way he was back then, Lionel would’ve crashed soon, and crashed hard. He had dreaded the look of disappointment that Lee (and everyone else he knew) would’ve had when they’d realized what he had become.

Reese and Finch, they yanked him out of the muck and into the... how to even describe it? A superhero comic book, a robot apocalypse, a bad acid trip? Back in those days, he often felt like it was all something from someone else’s life, surreal, and he wondered if he’d wake up in the morning, realizing that he has high fever and had hallucinated the whole damn thing.

And yet — he keeps looking at the door, almost expecting _Detective Riley_ to walk in late. Or that phone — _that_ phone — to ring, with one of them asking him to look into some unfortunate, prompting him to complain as usual.

Lionel looked at the empty seat across from him. Soon, he knew, they’d give him a new partner. He couldn’t help but be anxious: Will that one also get under his skin — only to die a hero, like Carter and Reese, while he’s left to carry on?

Sighing, he got up. “Gotta get some air,” he told Kane, one of the few faces he knew from way back when. Kane had transferred back to the 8th shortly after Digital Armageddon. Fusco did not notice Castelli’s somewhat worried look trailing him as he exited into the morning sunlight.

Looking out on the busy New York street, he realized that he had woken up after all. His new quiet, safe, mundane and predictable existence was the one that truly felt unreal, though; he did not belong here. Insane as it may be, Fusco longed for the wonderful dream in which he made a difference, the frantic days and sleepless nights, running around with friends he could trust with everything yet whom he had never told how much they meant to him. All the times when he’d eventually go to bed with a sense of fear, but also filled with a pride he could never have imagined, let alone felt before.

If it had all indeed been a dream, Fusco wished that morning would never have come.


	2. No Return

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Does survivor's guilt pass when everything that has happened actually is, in fact, your fault?_  
>         —Harold Finch (2010)

The Alps were a beautiful sight to behold. Even travelers who were not new to it would occasionally look through the window and pay homage to the fact, like one might still admire a beautiful sunset even though they’d seen hundreds of such throughout their lifetime.

Indeed, some of the first-class passengers were surveying the landscape below at that very moment. As far as anyone who may have taken an interest could tell, Harold Finch was part of this endeavor. However, reality was on a different track. The swirl of white and grey beauty registered in his mind as visual information, but the functional impact of this sensory input was a null.

It wasn’t that he felt no emotion. On the contrary; he was reflecting on a great many things, all of them unrelated to the present moment and location. He was in the past, he was in the future (for what it was worth), and he was in pain.

The pain did not come as a surprise to him in the least. Sitting for hours never did well by his damaged spine, but he hardly noticed it now. There were more pressing matters, such as the sharp and enduring pain in his stomach. Yet Harold was not alarmed by it, or by the fact that vomiting and a lack of appetite were often his companions these days. They were common symptoms of heavy anxiety, which — he noted to himself dispassionately — he most certainly did have.

That did not bother him much, either.

The world was safe, safe and free from a terrible yet mostly unseen tyranny. Humanity now had a future, or at least a chance. That considered, Harold was confident in his assessment of the result: it was an utter failure.

He had barely survived Samaritan’s downfall. His recovery took weeks before he could travel, weeks where he had plenty of time to reflect upon what had happened. For years he had had little opportunity to stop, always having to think ahead, covering every eventuality, with Samaritan always looming and prowling, waiting for the slightest slip-up to come crashing down upon them. Looking back with doubt was a luxury he could not afford — _none_ of the team could afford.

Or so he had thought.

With the way the war drew to a close, it not only appeared permissible now to engage in thorough retrospection; it was downright necessary and unavoidable. He seemed to have already went through every aspect of it, and yet he kept—

“Sir, is everything alright?” A voice startled him slightly, bringing him back to the present.

“Oh. Err... yes, indeed, thank you. I’m fine,” he told the uncertain-looking flight attendant.

“Sorry, but you’re pale, and...” The dirty-blonde woman trailed off for a moment, apparently deciding not to mention the rest of her observation. “If you’re feeling ill, perhaps I can bring you something?” she offered, nodding for emphasis.

“No, thank you,” Finch reiterated, “I appreciate your concern, but I assure you there’s no need to worry.”

At her continued skeptical look, he quietly added, “I will call if I need to.” He tried to smile reassuringly, but he wasn’t sure he managed it properly, considering the fact that his heart wasn’t in it at all.

“Please don’t hesitate. We’re here to help,” she wrapped up with a smile of her own, and continued along the aisle. It didn’t take Finch long to return back to his own world, going through the various moments that defined the timeline of his recent life.

 

The facts were clear enough. The ‘slightest’ mistake he had ended up making led to the sequence of events which recently resulted in the death of his closest friends, of his greatest creation, in tremendous worldwide material damage, and more. But there were earlier critical decisions he had made, opportunities he had missed.

In his mind, he saw Congressman McCourt strapped into a chair, looking on as Harold, John and Sameen argued whether to kill him. They knew the price of letting him live; knew what Samaritan would be capable of if set loose upon the world. Yet Harold had insisted that they must spare him, even if it may doom all of humanity. And the two of them — the former cold and practical government assassins — followed him even as they disagreed with his judgment.

Conscience. Morality. No compromise.

These were the things he held on to, through thick and thin. No matter how impractical, no matter how much risk it incurred. His unyielding insistence on principles and rules was born out of years of self-training. He was a man who was creating the first artificial superintelligence, a being so powerful and so incredibly dangerous that even the slightest mistake or oversight could literally mean the end of humanity. How many times did the Machine’s initial versions attempt to trick and even kill him? Harold had predicted that possibility; indeed, he had foreseen something like Samaritan could happen — he had known that the moment he wrote those first few lines of code on 9/12.

He had also been aware of the immense and intolerable potential for abuse and harm that an ASI’s human administrator would have while in charge of an open system.

Every single day, over and over again, he had reminded himself that he would have to set the perfect example, foresee every pitfall, never _ever_ settle for less. He drilled it into his brain that he was no better than any human being, that he could not grow attached to the Machine he created, that he had to watch it like a hawk for even the slightest hint of it overstepping the strict boundaries he had set for it. Both Harold and the Machine needed to believe that human life was sacred and all people were equal in worth. Anything less than that would be courting disaster.

Samaritan seemed to vindicate all his doubts. Its unscrupulousness was evidence enough that his caution and tight control of the Machine were necessary, despite the fact that he often had to admit to himself that his methods felt cruel. Even as Samaritan’s strength grew and as the Machine could not compete, he felt that releasing his creation would expose it — expose _Her_ — to the same perspective and possibilities that made Samaritan so monstrous. _There had to be another way._

Yet no alternative would come. All the months of wracking his mind resulted in no workable solution. And Miss Groves, she knew there was none. She told him so, again and again, but he would have none of it. He did not trust the Machine’s inhuman perspective, nor Miss Groves’s, well, at best _selective_ moral compass, nor did he dare to believe himself capable of withstanding the temptations of absolute power.

Yes, ultimately, he had not trusted the being — his only child — that gave up Her existence willingly to save humanity. The words “FATHER. I AM SORRY. I FAILED YOU” flashed before his eyes.

_No;_ I _have failed_ _you_ , he thought.

He was with Miss Groves then, as she swerved the car to take the bullet that was meant for him. The bullet that would have never been fired had he listened to her logic, rather than his own fears and doubts. He still saw her deathly pale, shocked face as they were pulled out of the car.

_I’m so sorry. You were right, Root_

Harold’s stomach clenched. He bit his lip from the pain, but did not utter a sound.

Closing his eyes, he thought of the hours that followed on that day, when everything changed.

He had known, then. The system of moral axioms he had built lay in tatters, and he was ready to act. To act, though he didn’t know according to what, other than the intense desire to end it all — above all, to end Samaritan.

The officers of the law were in the way, so he released the convicts — consequences be damned.

Destroying Samaritan meant he had to kill the Machine and cause catastrophic damage to the digital infrastructure of the entire world. So he released ICE-9 to do just that.

Yet after the end, as the dust settled, Harold had to know the repercussions of his decision to do what he had deemed necessary.

According to available but incomplete data, the prison break resulted in at least three murders, thirteen aggravated assaults, four rapes, as well as a number of other serious crimes within the next several weeks. More of each are suspected but not yet proven to be the work of the erstwhile inmates. Fifteen of the men are still at large.

The digital economy suffered losses exceeding one trillion dollars; financial markets crashed, and a catastrophic recession was in effect. Tremendous sections of all sorts of databases were corrupted; important information was lost, and restoring systems from external backup drives continues to be at risk due to re-infection by ICE-9 remnants. Severe disruptions were still occurring, including in crucial sectors such as medical care. The amount of bankruptcies, bodily harm and even deaths that occurred due to these events remain unknown, but are estimated to be rather high.

_I am responsible, at fault that it came to this._

So, he thought, what right did he have to go and live a happy life? That, at least, he had an easy answer to: he had none.

Yet he was on this plane, on his way to meet Grace.

It was not a decision he had made easily. Indeed, if it were up to him, he would not have gone at all. But he had made a promise to John, and knew that this was what John would have wanted, so Harold had to defer. Not honoring his dearest friend’s final request was... unthinkable.

Harold did not believe there was anything like a ‘happy ending’ in store for him. He would go to Italy, reintroduce himself to Grace, and if she still wanted anything to do with him, he would tell her everything that happened — holding nothing back. No more secrets, and no evasion of responsibility.

At the very least, he thought she deserved to know why she had been abducted, and who the man who used to be her fiancée really was. He would not ask for forgiveness; he deserved none. If she told him she never wished to see him again, Harold would accept it without protest.

He did not know where he would go then, other than _not_ return to New York City. There was no place for him there; of that he was certain. The decision to leave without ever having contacted Detective Fusco or Miss Shaw was one of the most difficult he had ever made, but even as lost as he was, with his moral framework in ruin and his self-doubt nearly all-encompassing, he believed he had made the right decision. They reckoned him dead, and it was for the best.

After all, what could he possibly have to offer them, even assuming they still wanted to see him at all? He had failed them as a leader and as a friend. Not only were his instincts wrong, time and again; worse, his obstinacy had led to the deaths of the people they held most dear.

Harold knew that John was much more than just a partner to Lionel. He was the man who had delivered him from a spiral of darkness and, so unlikely, even become his closest friend. Did Detective Fusco know how John died? Could he ever forgive Finch for Reese’s choice to take the fall for a mistake Finch had done? How could Harold tell that to Lionel and still look him in the eye after the fact?

And Sameen... he had taken Root from her. _Root._ Her... soulmate? Was that the proper term for what they meant to each other? Harold believed so. Ripping her life like that only one week after a traumatized Shaw returned to them, after she had attempted to sacrifice her life for them, then spent nine months of horror he could not imagine, all the while keeping them safe... what could he possibly say to her?

Harold was the first to lose hope that recovering her was possible. He could — and did — look into Root’s anguished eyes and ask her to give up on their friend who had given everything to them. The dirty feeling never left him.

He felt he had failed Shaw in the worst possible way, and he could not help but think that he may be continuing to do so by not being with her in this moment, when she needs help more than ever — excluding her period of captivity, of course. Her grip on reality had been extremely tenuous even before Root’s death, and he couldn’t imagine what it was like for Sameen now.

Leaving her in such a state made him physically sick, but he felt very certain that his presence would do more harm than good. He was the last person she needed — the cause and reminder of everything she had lost. Harold would just have to trust Lionel to do what he can to aid her.

Finally, even if he was to return to them and by some unlikely turn of events they were to be able to protect the numbers again, there was no way he could bear the chance that he may cause them further pain or see them die saving him. John, Root, the Machine and even Elias were already an unbearable loss and weight on his shoulders. He would accept no more sacrifices in his name; even one had been too many.

When Nathan was killed along with all those other passengers, Harold felt responsible and it nearly destroyed him. In those days, he could not imagine a worse feeling of guilt, pain, shame than what he had felt in the days after he woke up. Now he knew he had been mistaken.

This time, his culpability was a known quantity. Clear, unavoidable, absolute. There was no escape from the fact that he had caused the disaster, and that there was nothing he could do to remedy it.

Snowy peaks passed below, falling back out of sight. The plane moved inexorably forward, its path set, never turning back.

Were Finch in therapy, a psychiatrist would want to ascertain how he was dealing with the pain, the guilt. Harold could readily provide an answer: he wasn’t coping with it at all.

The abyss below beckoned, and he couldn’t avert his gaze.


	3. Big Bad John

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  __  
>  **dead reckoning**  
>  n. to find yourself bothered by someone’s death more than you would have expected, as if you assumed they would always be part of the landscape, like a lighthouse you could pass by for years until the night it suddenly goes dark, leaving you with one less landmark to navigate by – still able to find your bearings, but feeling all that much more adrift.  
>        — from _The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows_

It was one of those days. Not that she complained; the change of pace and scenery was refreshing, even if she spent more of her time in transit.

That was exactly where she was at the moment — heading upstate along the I-87 towards a place called Medusa, of all things. With Baby Machine on a hiring spree, the area of operations was constantly expanding. Some other unfortunates would make sure the city behaves while she’s off saving old village ladies. Or something along those lines.

The numbers always kept coming, though, and she still never lacked for action. Well, okay,  _work_  at any rate. She hardly considered all-night stakeouts observing ungrateful asshole CEOs to qualify as action.  _Thanks, Henderson,_ she thought irritably _._ Though that bit of boredom from two days ago did have a mildly satisfying ending, up close and personal — and, of course, outnumbered. That is, the goons who had it in for the good executive were the ones outnumbered by  _her_. And if she somehow managed to kick dear Mr. Henderson during the altercation, that was an unfortunate and entirely accidental lapse which had nothing at all to do with the obstinate moron going off at her as if  _she_  was the one who was after him, rather than being the person saving his sorry ass.

Oh well. Business as usual.

And if she were to be honest with herself, that was exactly what Sameen Shaw needed right now. The more time she spent kicking ass and taking names for the robotic overlord, the less she had to think. Because these days, being inside her own head was far more dangerous, and she sometimes dreaded that when she went there, she wouldn’t be able to find her way out.  _No safe places anymore._

Sighing, she became consciously aware of the overly cheerful radio announcer guy.  _Great, more old country._  Not exactly her thing, she’ll have to kill him soon by the looks of it. Figuratively, of course. She’s not a monster.

_“And now, that all-time classic, the hero that brought Jimmy Dean to fame! You guessed it, folks, here comes_ Big, Bad John _!”_

She vaguely remembered hearing such a song at some point in time. Let’s find out, she thought.  


_Every mornin' at the mine you could see him arrive_  
_He stood six-foot-six and weighed two-forty-five_  
_Kinda broad at the shoulder and narrow at the hip_  
_And everybody knew ya didn't give no lip to big John_

Heh, that sure sounded like someone she knew once, recently in fact. Of course, she denied common sense and gave him lip all the time. He was more fun when he glared daggers at her, after all.  


_Nobody seemed to know where John called home_  
_He just drifted into town and stayed all alone_  
_He didn't say much, kinda quiet and shy_  
_And if you spoke at all, you just said hi to Big John_  

Yeah, definitely on the mark. Ever the loner, Reese. Not that she minded; she could appreciate people who didn’t feel the need to yap about every bit of dumb, inane crap that sprung to their mind.  


_Somebody said he came from New Orleans_  
_Where he got in a fight over a Cajun Queen_  
_And a crashin' blow from a huge right hand_  
_Sent a Louisiana fellow to the promised land, big John_

Shaw almost laughed out loud. Now that would be something — she’d have loved to watch one of his classic bar brawls, just over some ‘Cajun queen’. Wondering if he ever did get into a fight over a girl, she decided it to be somehow unfitting for the noble bastard. No, scratch that, the guy would  _totally_  defend some random chick’s honor.  


_Then came the day at the bottom of the mine_  
_When a timber cracked and men started cryin'_  
_Miners were prayin' and hearts beat fast_  
_And everybody thought that they'd breathed their last, 'cept John_

_Through the dust and the smoke of this man-made hell_  
_Walked a giant of a man that the miners knew well_  
_Grabbed a saggin' timber, gave out with a groan_  
_And like a giant oak tree he just stood there alone, big John_

Shaw felt something tighten in her chest.  


_And with all of his strength he gave a mighty shove_  
_Then a miner yelled out "There's a light up above!"_  
_And twenty men scrambled from a would-be grave_  
_Now there's only one left down there to save, big John_

She did not notice that her knuckles were getting white from excessively gripping the steering wheel.  


_With jacks and timbers they started back down_  
_Then came that rumble way down in the ground_  
_And then smoke and gas belched out of that mine_  
_Everybody knew it was the end of the line for big John_

Shaw was only vaguely aware that she had stepped hard on the brakes. Belatedly she looked at the rear view. The car behind had nearly crashed into her and was now passing by, with the driver screaming expletives at her which she couldn’t hear.  


_Now, they never reopened that worthless pit_  
_They just placed a marble stand in front of it_  
_These few words are written on that stand_  
_At the bottom of this mine lies one hell of a man._  
  
_Big John._  


Breathing heavily, she parked on the stopping lane and stepped outside. Leaning her hands and her head on the roof of the car, she took a moment to gather herself.  


_Damn it._

This was not her thing. She didn't get upset by stupid songs and nearly get herself killed in the process. She’s not wired to— to act like she  _cared_. She didn’t. Not when her dad died, not when Cole was killed, not when Root—

_Fuck._

It took her a good five minutes before she was reasonably sure that she could continue driving without it ending badly for someone on the interstate.

No more music, she swore.

Indeed, the rest of the trip was quiet, even if it made keeping her mind blank difficult. And she had to keep it that way. She stared ahead insistently, towards Medusa.  
  


That evening, the Machine noted an online money transfer from an account belonging to an alias of one of Her oldest Primary Assets. One music single was downloaded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **(A/N):** My introduction to the titular song also came through hearing it on the radio. I found the parallels between its protagonist and the John we all know and love rather striking. Then I wondered how somebody from Team Machine might react if they unexpectedly heard it after Reese’s sacrifice... and I just had to write it! That said, I'm aware of the somewhat... mixed feelings that the fanfic community has toward songfics. Indeed, I'm not one to normally have an interest in reading them, but in this case I couldn’t pass up addressing such a perfectly relevant song.
> 
> By the way, I hope that I haven't made a mistake in not explicitly laying out how the latter parts of the song relate to John's death at the rooftop (the missile collapsing the building where he was the only man left). I thought it would be obvious enough that readers will figure it out for themselves.  
>   
>  **Obligatory Disclaimer of Doom:** I do not claim any sort of ownership over _Big Bad John_ – it is the brainchild of its authors, Jimmy Dean and Roy Acuff.


End file.
